Word: likud
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...Mitchell appointment will probably prove controversial among Israel's neoconservative American supporters - and, quite possibly, with Israel's government, especially if the Likud Party wins the Feb. 10 elections. To Likudniks, the very act of naming an envoy is suspicious: Mitchell is likely to do something the Bush Administration rarely did - ask for Israeli concessions, however minor. The Mitchell appointment and the Al Arabiya interview are of a piece: respect will be paid to Muslims by the Obama Administration. The long-term goal is to weaken the regional tyrants and extremists by depriving them of the Great Satan caricature...
...regardless of the outcome of the Olmert-Livni-Barak tussle within the war cabinet, the biggest winner from the Gaza campaign was Benyamin Netanyahu, leader of the hawkish opposition Likud party and front-runner in the polls, who watched the Gaza war from the sidelines and saw his own lead over Livni wider to a margin of 33 seats to her party...
...Change Given Israel's long-term goal of ousting Hamas in Gaza, some key military and political leaders have urged that it expand the goals of its current operation and use its momentum to take control of Gaza City and decapitate Hamas. Most vocal in advocating this option is Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, the hawkish front runner in the race for Prime Minister, who will portray any outcome that leaves Hamas intact in Gaza as a failure - bad news for his chief rivals, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni...
...close quarters with the militants, disrupting their structures and their chain of command and killing more of their fighters - even at the cost of Israeli casualties. They also fear that the coming Israeli election - in which both Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni are candidates, but the more hawkish Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu is the front runner - may be complicating Israel's decision-making. So even if the window of opportunity is closing, there may yet be a brief ground incursion...
...underestimated Israel's readiness to launch a military campaign in response to an escalation of Palestinian rocket fire onto Israel's southern towns and cities. This is, however, an Israeli election season in which polls show voters moving so quickly to the right that even the hawkish front runner, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, is losing support to parties more extreme than his own. Still, the factors that restrained Israel from launching an attack on Gaza until now remain in place, and the likelihood of an escalation in the confrontation in the days and weeks ahead - and the negative regional backlash...